#bestialising

[iranondeaira]

" Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde.

Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent."

Paul Valéry

[jeanchrisosme]

Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde. Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent.

Paul Valéry

[cricxuss]

" Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde.

Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent."

Paul Valéry

[miragemirrors]

yeah writing an essay on black sun and literary zoomorphism vs bestialisation of the oppressed has so much ground to tread on

[mega-adam-blr]

Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde. Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent.

Paul Valéry

[musingsbycaitlin]

Novel Writing Update: Cervinae Part 1

Thought I’d post a writing update for the homies.

I’m sort of re-organising my tumblr so everything is all over the place. I need to re-do a writblr intro post, I need to sort out all my mutuals and everything. Safe to say, its a mess right now. But weirdly enough, I’ve been writing/planning an actual novel. So here’s a lil update for you all.

(image id:/ a dark green woodland clearing with a small baby deer in the centre, the title Cervinae and subtitle A Novel are framing the deer. end id:/)

cw: cult stuff, child death, (i’m not really sure what else so if you notice anything that needs to be cw then please let me know)

Some of you may remember that I posted a writing update for a lil short story I was planning called Cervinae, and in that update I mentioned how this had the potential to be a full length novel but that freaked me out too much so I wanted to write it as a short story? Well, turns out the idea in fact was too big for a short story and so here we are.

Cervinae (a novel)

ser-vin-ay (noun) - a subfamily of deer such as Elk or Fallow etc.

Genre: coming of age, thriller, horror???

POV: first person retrospective

Setting: small survivalist commune in the Netherlands, 1995

Stage: planning

Plot: after her brother dies under mysterious circumstances, Nina and new commune member Maude, take it upon themselves to find the real reason for his death but accidentally uncover a web of lies within the commune.

Characters:

Nina Braams: seven year old Nina knows only the confines of her family’s commune in central Netherlands. she doesn’t care much for other people or conversation until Maude arrives and tells her of the outside world. this intrigues her and she becomes infatuated with the idea of life outside of the commune.

Maude Vos: Maude is a fifteen year old with rebellious outlooks on life and society. she believes everyone and everything is out to get her and so ran away from her home to find a ‘simpler’ life on the commune.

Vince Braams: Nina’s father is a piece of fucking work, god I hate him. he thinks only of himself and the protection of the commune, finding little empathy for others and despises the outside world.

Eline Linden: a young mother on the commune, new to this way of life. she acts as a motherly figure for Nina despite her already having a mother, and is one of the few adults on the commune that is trusted by the children, especially Nina and Maude.

This was a whole journey, oh my days. I would like to point out that I have never written a novel, no idea of mine has ever been fleshed out enough to warrant a novel at all, and I have NEVER planned a novel in my LIFE! Yet here I am, having planned a novel in one day! ONE DAY! I haven’t written any of the novel yet, other than the first two paragraphs I had typed up when this was going to be a short story, and I do still like them it’s just hard not to want to rewrite the whole thing. The original post is still up but I am going to post the extract again on here just for simplicities sake.

Extract:

Maxim’s death was to my dad like the news at 6; he didn’t care. If anything, it was more of a nuisance. He managed a sour pout for a few hours but soon returned to the logging he had been engrossed in moments before. I climbed into the bay-window seat and peered at him through bleary eyes, smearing tears across my swollen cheeks. Behind me I could still hear Mum’s wailing as she clutched his head to her bosom. That was the first and only time I heard her swear.

           My frilled t-shirt was plastered with dried blood, dark red and brown, some of it even stained on my skin. It was all over the bed, the counters, and the rugs. It had bestialised the home and made it hard to distinguish between family and slaughter house. A stranger would think we had been gutting pigs.

Please let me know if you want to be +/- from the taglist! ;)

[jamie-007]

Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde.

Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse.

Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève.

Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent.

Paul Valéry

[xjoyce66]

Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde.

Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse.

Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève.

Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent.

—    Paul Valery

[ohneneid]

Today, we have the terrible awareness that we are face to face with a final decision. Either we upbreed the old blood and thereby find renewed vitality and a heightened will to struggle, or the Teutonic European values of culture and ordered government will sink under the filthy human flood of Cosmopolis; crippled on the hot and sterile asphalt of bestialised subhumanity.

Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#10yrsago Che: the graphic biography

Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon (the pair who produced the bestselling graphic adaptation of the 9-11 Commission Report) have a new book out: Che: A Graphic Biography.

In addition to narrating the remarkable story of Guevara's life, Che is a very good backgrounder on the geopolitics that gave rise to Guevara's pan-Americanism, the Cuban revolution, and his tragic and brutal execution (the press that published Che, Hill & Wang, were last mentioned here for their graphic biography of Leon Trotsky).

The graphic format is especially well-suited to these geopolitical sequences, in which multi-page spreads are used to connect the dots between historical events and nations to give a compact but extremely informative tour through the complex story of Latin American colonization and independence as well as the Cold War.

This background also sets the stage for the complex story of Che, the man; and Che, the symbol. Both are fraught -- Che, the man, was fierce, brilliant, flawed, vicious, and compassionate. As a symbol, Che has become a revolutionary icon devoid of any substance, for sale on mugs and t-shirts (a warped mirror of Guevara's veneration in Cuba itself, where his larger-than-life image has likewise become an ideological icon).

As with every biography, the biographers have had to take sides, and, by and large, they side with Che. They don't whitewash his actions in war, or the disastrous blunders in Africa; but they also give just appreciation to Guevara's bravery, his commitment to justice, and his integrity.

The contemporary popular narrative of Che has two grossly oversimplified sides: sneering neocons who dismiss him as a butcher or a fool and denigrate those who sport Che badges as naive kids; and the worshipful reification of Che as a kind of revolutionary saint who could do no wrong.

The reality is subtler and more important than either position has it. The colonial story is one of immense greed and profit-taking by rich countries at the expense of the poor; it's the story of corruption and brutal repression, and it's the story of revolutions attempted, betrayed, and destroyed by internal and external forces. Guevara's life is a lens for understanding what colonialism does to its participants -- as Guevara says, "imperialism bestialises men."

Che: A Graphic Biography

https://boingboing.net/2009/12/10/che-the-graphic-biog.html

[iranondeaira]

" Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde.

Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent."

Paul Valéry

[tikkisaram]

Elizabeth Bishop — An Actual Bishop?

Elizabeth Bishop is not a poet we read for her versificatory virtuosity or marvelous musicality; one need only take a look at The Fish to see that her poems — admittedly not without exception, but overwhelmingly — exhibit less poeticality than many writers' prose. No, her appeal lies not in the traditional qualities we would associate with poetry, but rather in her treatment of the subjects of her poems. She is a poet of incredible empathy, attentiveness and ability to wonder, a poet who exhibits admirable goodness and compassion — acting consistently as per the teachings of the Bible.

Perhaps the best example of Bishop's compassion and empathy is The Prodigal — her retelling of Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son.1 She conveys sympathy through her detailed description of the son's suffering — an incredibly vivid "brown enormous odor" surrounds him; the sty in which he lives is "plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung"; his mental state is no better than his surroundings as he is plagued by "his shuddering insights, beyond his control,/ touching him." Bishop focuses on the bestialisation of the son to show him being shunned and ignored by society, dismissed and offered no help. Ken Stone points out the "recurring tendency to disparage humans recognized as different or other (whether on the basis of gender, race, nation, class, or any other marker of difference) by animalizing them, turning them into beasts who then can be treated in ways that we routinely allow ourselves to treat animals."2 This tendency is seen elsewhere in the Bible — for example, Jacques Derrida reads the story of the Garden of Eden as linking animal difference with sexual difference and the boundary between humanity and God3 — and in this case it is made stronger by the fact that the Jews believed pigs to be unclean animals. The animal is associated with the other — Ellen Armour, in a theological essay on Derrida’s Le Toucher, refers to the "fourfold" of "man and his others: his racial and sexual others, his divine other (God), and the animal."4 Armour suggests that modernity is characterized by "a certain configuration of these four elements" in which ‘man occupies the center while the animals, God, as well as man’s raced and sexed others, constitute a network of mirrors that reflect man back to himself by supposedly securing his boundaries."5 This begs the question: why is the son set apart from the rest of society? Perhaps it is simply that his choices led him to poverty and that made him looked down upon. It would not be unreasonable, however, to argue that his situation is the product of prejudice — likely due to homosexuality or other queerness. Nonetheless, this is not the place for a queer reading of The Prodigal (another blessay, perhaps?) — what is important is that Bishop, for one, refuses to shun the son and treats him with an admirable degree of empathy, exemplifying Jesus's commandment "Love your neighbour as you love yourself."6

The Fish is another poem that can be read in light of the Bible. The most obvious link is the ending: "And I let the fish go," which shows empathy and reflects Jesus's teachings: "Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them!"7 What is perhaps more interesting is that Bishop describes the fish at length as being extremely ungainly and repulsive — "Here and there/ his brown skin hung in strips/ like ancient wallpaper"; "He was speckled with barnacles,/ fine rosettes of lime,/ and infested/ with tiny white sea-lice" — yet seems to value it highly despite its seeming worthlessness. This parallels the Bible once again:

The stone which the builders rejected as worthless    turned out to be the most important of all. This was done by the Lord;    what a wonderful sight it is!8

We see more of Bishop's ability to see the smallest of things as wonderful in Filling Station. It is similar to The Fish for its oddly sympathetic descriptions of ugliness — "oil-soaked, oil-permeated/ to a disturbing, over-all/ black translucency"; "a set of crushed and grease-/ impregnated wickerwork" — but focuses more on the work done in the background by "somebody" who "loves us all". Her focus on efforts which would generally go unnoticed is once again consistent with what Jesus sought to teach us: "Whoever wants to be first must place himself last of all and be the servant of all."9 Bishop elevates the 'servant' to an almost God-like entity that encompasses us all with love.

An extension of Bishop's empathy is her ability to put herself in the mindset of someone else, especially a child. Many of her poems are written from the perspective of herself10 as a young girl, and she masterfully captures the unique way of seeing the world that children are gifted with. First Death in Nova Scotia shows a childhood mentality employed to confront death; a vivid imagination conjures wild explanations to try and come to terms with what is happening. The ending in particular combines fantasy and fairytale with logic in a way that is typical of young children — Arthur was invited to the royal court, but how can he go if he cannot open his eyes? Sestina is a more unusual example because the narrator is an omniscient entity, not a child, but despite employing an adult vocabulary it focuses on a child's mindset — the surreal image of little moons falling off the pages of the book; the characterisation of the almanac as "clever"; the "marvelous" Marvel stove. These examples bring to mind the words of Jesus: "I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven."11 Bishop's ability to take on an innocently immature persona is yet another example of her sympathetic, empathetic nature.

Bishop may not have actually been a bishop12, but she was probably a better person than a good deal of them. One needs only to look at the news to know how often the latter seem to completely ignore the teachings of the Bible and do utterly terrible things.13

Luke 15:11-32 ↩︎

Ken Stone, 'Judges 3 and the Queer Hermeneutics of Carnophallogocentrism' in The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, edited by Yvonne Sherwood and Anna Fisk (Oxford University Press, 2017), 264. ↩︎

Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, edited by Marie-Louise Mallet and translated by David Wills (Fordham University Press, 2008), 101. Cited in Stone, 'Queer Hermeneutics of Carnophallogocentrism', 265. ↩︎

Ellen T. Armour, ‘Touching Transcendence: Sexual Difference and Sacrality in Derrida’s Le Toucher’, in Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments, edited by Yvonne Sherwood and Kevin Hart (Routledge, 2005), 353. Cited in Stone, 'Queer Hermeneutics of Carnophallogocentrism', 263. ↩︎

Ibid. 358. ↩︎

Matthew 22:39. All Bible quotes in this blessay are from the Good News New Testament, Today's English Version. ↩︎

Matthew 5:7 ↩︎

Matthew 21:42 citing Psalm 118:22 ↩︎

Mark 9:35 ↩︎

'Someone else' and 'herself' are not contradictory here; the fact that her mindset as an adult is radically different than that of her as a child justifies the separation. ↩︎

Matthew 18:3 ↩︎

Not that this has been conclusively disproven. ↩︎

Not to go off on a tangent yet again, but here are some examples. ↩︎

[jeanchrisosme]

Si vous saviez combien la peau est profonde. Oui, cela dépend comme on la caresse. Il y a des personnes qui vous effleurent comme une écorce et d'autres qui vous remuent jusqu'à la sève. Il y a des mains qui vous chosifient, vous bestialisent, et il y a des mains qui vous apaisent, vous guérissent, et quelquefois même vous divinisent.

Paul Valéry

[rummy-playlearn]

Implementing pedagogy and method acting research

These both will be brought into the introduction/preface (haven’t decided if it will be both or one), and also reiterated in the order of experience. I’m struggling at this very moment to know what to write and where. I know there are certain things I need to talk about, and go into detail on, but I’m unsure of how to do it. This is always my problem. The overwhelming feeling of having a lot of difficult work to do, since I am so far behind. It’s over a week after the mid-point presentations and I am still making the final piece. It makes me so scared. I think I will drop the preface and just include everything in the introduction. This is because I feel there is too much overlap, and I am not bound to the normal structure of a book.

I think the structure will be a (I started writing and then got carried away, so here are all my thoughts as they come):

Introduction, outlining the reasons for writing the book, which are, talking in first person, so it as if i am introducing myself to the teacher, and the second person, talking directly to the teacher: 

The intent on writing the book - 

wanting to provide a clear cut lesson plan for those teachers who are aware of the damage the schooling structure is having on their students; are anti-capitalist; want to improve their lessons, but are not sure of how to go about this and fear being told of (or even fired) by their school. 

If they will be as their reason for teaching isn’t making money, but to better education for their students.

Can be taught as part of English, History, Drama or Citizenship lessons,  You can do this without fear of being told off by the head teacher, as this is perfectly subtle for any of those topics. If you do run into trouble, simply say you carried it out under the need for ‘re-calibration of the enjoyment of learning’ ie - ‘the class is in dire need of physical activity’. Do not put blame on the students, like having difficulties with their engagement, as this will result in them being flagged up, potentially.

The methods spoken about in this book can be transferred to any other topic. A script need not be the basis, any text could be acted out. An author could be a character. An academic text could be pulled apart, theories and subjects could become entities with personalities.

Why this is based in the Haitian revolution - 

It is a prime example of history that isn’t talked about, since there wasn’t that much of a positive outcome to the revolution, since the west practically refused to recognise Haiti as a Republic, informally, made trade very difficult, and altogether contributed to Haiti becoming the poorest country in the world. On top of this, the close connection Vodou had to the revolution was immense, and also, not commonly known, as it should. The misconception of Vodou (or voodoo, the Louisiana branch) as a religion, also the bestialisation and image of ‘savagery’ that is portrayed by the west, contributes to the racist perceptions of black people and their culture. All of this is reason enough to dedicate a whole lesson to, and very much coincides with the purpose of the lesson as a whole, to teach critical thinking, and destroying the capitalist education ‘banking system’, half of the lesson plan.

Why the use of script - 

drama is the optimum method of learning because it includes all of the necessary parts that for teaching in an anti-capitalist manner. Those are: experience, collective learning, interaction, imagination, cognitive development, memory, communication, problem solving and responsibility. 

Those are drama in general, but for this script acting experience it includes much more. This will all become clear in the order of experience section. 

Experience is so important to marxist teaching and also understanding Vodou as part of the Haitian revolution, because the point is to have the students see that they can incorporate elements of the of the teachings (this will become clear in The Meaning) into their lives, and they already do. 

Understanding the script - 

The script does not exist to be performed, only read and rehearsed.

Performing defeats the object of trying to understand the characters inside and out, and discussion on how draw on personal experiences to think about how a character might act, after deciphering who they are.

The stage direction decrease in the second half of the play, to allow to push students (with your help) into thinking about a characters tone or action, once they have become familiar with them.

The play is kept short. This is to keep the focus on the purpose of the lesson, discovering the analogy/meaning of the script and experience as a whole.

Method Acting -

Invented by Lee Strasberg in ...

Section that helps get the students into the acting mindset, it becomes serious for them, rather than seeing it as not learning. Although the atmosphere must be kept playful at all times - further discussed a bit later.

Helps to draw on experience even more, as this was the main aspect of the discipline.

Critical thinking - 

Schools don’t teach it.

the ‘banking system’ operates on creating students that exist to be ‘filled up’ with knowledge buy the all-knowing authoritative figure, the narrating subject, the teacher.

The more students accept this dynamic, they adopt it as their world view and never thinking critically about. This is why there is time at the very beginning for students to voice all of their issues with the school system. 

Validation - this is very important. Destruction of self-respect is what capitalist society feeds on to create a disciplined labour force that succumbs to authority - why the school system is run in this way. You must validate students in anyway possible. Not overly praising where nothing has value, to a degree where a student self-esteem and self worth doesn’t tumble. Criticism in a society where you feel held does bash you to the point of feel helpless, but in our current society it does. 

Vulnerability - 

To destroy the relationship of the teacher as omnipotent scary being, the students must be able to relate to the teacher. 

Show it by opening up; taking part in all exercises; learning alongside the students, learning from them as much as they are from you.

They must feel your humanity.  

Creating an equal space.

The Meaning -

Should not be read beforehand, only with the student so there is a feeling of collective discovery and destroys the notion of ‘narrating subject’, as well as increasing vulnerability. 

It explains each aspect of the script and how it is an analogy for the Haitian revolution and the influence of Vodou.

Explains the experience and why it was conducted in such a way, to learn about the Haitian revolution, but also a much wider understanding of emancipation and consciousness. 

Explains the elements that are involved: drawing on experience and critical thinking. 

[mrlafont]

Ce n'est jamais l'« acte » qui est bon ou mauvais, mais toujours seulement les sentiments qu'on a en l'accomplissant, — les sentiments sont les vrais actes ! les sentiments qui sont ou bien réjouissants : j'ai fait ce que j'ai pu et voulu faire, ou bien pénibles : je ne l'ai pas fait, — étant faible : lâche ; — toute mauvaiseté réside uniquement dans le reproche qu'on s'en fait, cela à part, le concept de mal n'a pas de sens ! Le seul vice, la seule vilenie, le seul mal, la seule obscurité, c'est la lâcheté ; la seule lumière — le courage. Et l'essence du courage authentique est : la Liberté absolue à l'égard de tout ; car toute soumission déshonore, il n'y a point d'honneur en dehors de la Souveraineté — laquelle s'étend aussi à l'ensemble des pensées... Croyez-vous que ces principes aient, dans la pratique, le sens d'une bestialisation ? il est impossible de devenir ce qu'on est déjà ; qu'ils signifient l'anarchie ? mais non, disons plutôt la Théoarchie — le royaume de Dieu sur la terre, soit une débestialisation radicale. Un « paradis terrestre », plus sublime et aussi plus solide que celui que dans vos songes vous voudriez spécieusement asseoir sur « l'amour et la fraternité » : — un éden qui sera fondé sur la Volonté : sur Celle qui n'a pas besoin de petites prothèses que sont les amours et les fraternités, qui n'a besoin de rien : qui, de même qu'elle accomplit orgiastiquement tout ce qu'elle veut, accepte non moins orgiastiquement et bienheureusement tout ce qui lui arrive, éternelle intangible dans son éclat... — Voilà la sur« moralité ». —

Ladislav Klima, Instant et éternité.

[lofihipbot]

lofi hip hop beats to bestialise to